Hi. I am not Buddhist, but am very interested in eastern belief systems that are about understanding 'being' ; Buddhism is one of them. I find the experience of the apparent reality of the 'alternate reality' of a lucid dream, greatly illustrates the illusory nature of our waking 'reality'.If that makes sense to you. When you are lucid in a dream ( awake in the dream world) and can alter the dreamscape etc., and you look around the dream and see how very like reality it is ( and as 'real' as reality); then you can't help but question the waking reality as well. Sigh. I hope I'm not confusing you.

The key to creativity is to remove the watchers from the gates, and realize how free you really are.

Hi, I am a Tibetan Buddhist and a lucid dreamer. What you said in this post makes perfect sense to me. The more you lucid dream and retain memories of your dreams, the more you will begin to realise the illusory nature of 'waking life'. In fact, Buddhist dream yogis have said that the 'waking life' is the real dream, and I have realised this through my own experience. What is interesting about doing lucid dream work is that it makes you more lucid in the waking life, also. Or it could also said that by becoming more mindful and perceptive in waking life, the lucid dream state takes on my clarity.

I find it helpful to meditate before going to bed, as it stimulates my mind with more clarity and calm to enhance and maintain lucid dreaming. However, I don't like rolling out of my body and going directly into a lucid dream or OBE. It freaks me out. (I am working on that fear.) What I do instead is tell myself that I will wake up in a dream and experience something that will be beneficial to my life's potential. It takes a lot of dedication and, to be very frank with you, I am not a very disciplined person. But I do seem to have a gift for this, as does everyone in my family. It seems like it is a genetic gift.

I have had some interesting experiences while chanting (om mani padme hung, etc.) in the dream state and even doing pujas! Have you tried doing that?

I am partial to Theravada Buddhism (the atheistic type) and meditate when I can. Meditation, in my experience, has helped me to achieve a still-mind state and come to a profound realisation: I, the observer, don't really exist. - But to achieve such state of near selflessness it is best for one not to look for it. It is hard to come by - at least in my case.

Meditation can also be used to aid the practice of lucid draming, which I enjoy and can apply to waking life sometimes. But the world of lucid dreaming, despite promoting consciousness and self-awareness, represents the opposite of Buddhism's ultimate nirvanic goal because the world of dreams is a reflection of a portion of an active mind and the virtual surroundings that arise can often entice. Unless, of course, the practitioner uses the hedonistic nature of lucid dreaming as a challenge on the path to enlightenment.

As the story goes, Buddha faced Mara in deep meditation before he became "awake". Mara was the lord of illusions and Gautama defeated him by realising that the demon was himself - that last ounce of ego struggling to maintain its existence.

Buddhism is a profound philosophy that truly looks at the nature of mind and has the potential to prepare anyone for death. It does this, not with lies or fantasies, but with the truth. We will lose everything in the end.

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"Empty cognizance of one taste, suffused with knowing, is your unmistaken nature, the uncontrived original state. when not altering what is, allow it to be as it is, and the awakened state is right now spontaneously present."

trajet wrote:I find it helpful to meditate before going to bed, as it stimulates my mind with more clarity and calm to enhance and maintain lucid dreaming. However, I don't like rolling out of my body and going directly into a lucid dream or OBE. It freaks me out. (I am working on that fear.) What I do instead is tell myself that I will wake up in a dream and experience something that will be beneficial to my life's potential. It takes a lot of dedication and, to be very frank with you, I am not a very disciplined person. But I do seem to have a gift for this, as does everyone in my family. It seems like it is a genetic gift.

I have had some interesting experiences while chanting (om mani padme hung, etc.) in the dream state and even doing pujas! Have you tried doing that?

Meditation and buddhist philosophy has helped me a lot to over come fear during sleep paralysis, sometimes by using mindfulness techniques or sometimes simply just reminding myself of the luck of intrinsic reality and impermanence of the experiences. Now i just have fun and explore with it. Of curse i get a little scared when it gets to weird but its manageable.

Im not a "lucid dreamer" per se. Im in the middle of my second year in dharma and meditation and over the past year i have had at least 1 or 2 lucid dreams per month (probably the residual effect of my shamata getting more stable) till i finally decided to train myself in this practice. During those lucid dreams i did try some dharma practices, mainly meditation but also tried to transform my surroundings into a pure land (or at least some pure stuff) and do some postrations. Not much succes as i dont have much dream stability but this is one of my goals. Ill defintly try some chanting next time.

Summerlander wrote:Meditation can also be used to aid the practice of lucid draming, which I enjoy and can apply to waking life sometimes. But the world of lucid dreaming, despite promoting consciousness and self-awareness, represents the opposite of Buddhism's ultimate nirvanic goal because the world of dreams is a reflection of a portion of an active mind and the virtual surroundings that arise can often entice. Unless, of course, the practitioner uses the hedonistic nature of lucid dreaming as a challenge on the path to enlightenment.

I understand your point but i dont think thats the view, at least in tibetan buddhism. I appriciet your comment!. I would try to explain the view of dreaming practices in Buddhism but ill probably screw it up so ill leave you both with the video that inspired my to train this skill. Thank you both

I am just reading The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, and Lucid Dreaming Gateway to the Inner Self by Robert Waggoner. Robert Waggoner, after many years of fun exploring went beyond the ego in his dreams to discover eventually the 'clear light'. He seemed to accomplish the similar goal in Tibetan Buddhism. I think the lucid dream is a playground in the projections of the mind, but then the dreamer begins to ignore the projections, and speak to the awareness behind the dream. This leads the dreamer on to deeper explorations. LucidLink, here on this forum, has been interacting with the awareness behind the dream and could tell you more I think.

The key to creativity is to remove the watchers from the gates, and realize how free you really are.